Chapter 10

By the time Prometheus got to the top of the cliff there was nothing left to see. The Tribe had either run away or hidden and the gods had all disappeared. He sat to rest for a moment in the sunshine and closed his eyes.

Voices! Instinctively, he ducked behind a low rock and peeped out. What he saw took his breath away.

It was the Mother herself the living Goddess in Triad Virgin, Nymph and Crone. He could hardly believe his eyes. She was dazzling! Her skin was a yellowish white, like the underbelly of a fish, and her hair was also light in colour. That of the Crone was, of course, white, but the Nymph had hair the colour of chestnuts and the Virgin's hair was even lighter the colour of the flanks of the mountain goats.

But what amazed him most was their clothing. They were covered in bright, shiny stuff in vibrant colours. It looked as if it were made of flowers or butterflies' wings.

He knew he should not look. It was death to look upon the face of the Goddess, but he could not tear his gaze away. The vision held him as if in a trance the three forms of the Goddess clothed in magical butterfly wings.

Then the Virgin turned and looked straight at him. Their eyes locked. Even her eyes were light in colour a pale greenish blue. He felt her looking deep into his soul and he could do nothing. He could neither move nor look away. He was caught like a fly in a web.

Then he heard a clamour on the plateau behind her and she broke her gaze. The sky was filled with silver things, like the fish only smaller. These were shaped more like beetles. He watched as one by one they alighted on the plateau but, instead of being afraid, the Goddess ran towards them. One of the creatures lifted a wing and a man stepped out from under it, followed by another, then together they bent back under the wing and carried out a third. The third man was injured. His legs were bleeding profusely and the blood dripped on the ground as the two bearers carried him along.

Now more people were getting out of the other giant beetles and gathering round the first two. He could hear them chattering amongst themselves and wailing in sorrow. Then the whole procession marched up to a strange cliff standing alone in the middle of the plateau. The cliff was all wrong. It was too regular. The sides were flat and the edges were pointed, and huge stone tree trunks grew up in front of it, supporting a great slab of stone.

There must have been a cave inside because one by one the people disappeared within. The Virgin looked back briefly over her shoulder before vanishing into the cliff. And Prometheus was once more left alone on the mountainside.

He was about to turn and make his way back to the cave when he saw something brown and fuzzy in a hollow further down. It didn't look like a bush. Slipping and sliding as he went, he climbed down to investigate.

~*~

They brought Hephaestus to the civic hall. His face was twisted in agony. He was white at the lips and weeping with the pain. A trail of dark red blood lay pooling slowly onto the polished stone floor. The crew gathered round as he was laid on a table and Apollo waved them back. But Aphrodite refused to go away. She had stopped wailing now and was weeping quietly, holding Hephaestus by the hand and gazing into his tortured face.

Being smaller than the rest, Athena was able to slip past the others to the front and have a proper look at Hephaestus. Half his foot had been blown away. In among the mess of bloody tissue she could see pieces of bone and strips of fat. She felt her gorge rising and turned to leave the hall. Once outside she ran behind the building and threw up into a small heap of builders' rubble, then looked up guiltily to see if she had been observed. Her mouth tasted vile.

She headed for the little spring where she and Demeter and Hestia had been drinking only a short time ago.

Maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to marry Apollo after all. She no longer had any desire to help him in his work. Behind her she heard Hephaestus scream and she almost threw up again.

~*~

As Prometheus reached the patch of brown he realised it was a person. Someone had fallen from the high cliff. The legs and arms were spread-eagled on the ground. Whoever it was must be dead, surely? No-one could survive a fall like that.

Then he recognised the fur cloak and feathers of the Mother and his heart clenched in his chest. Pandora!

Suppressing a small sob, he clambered down the last few feet and knelt beside her. Pandora! He could not believe he had lost her so easily. Bending his head to her face he felt the faint flutter of her breath. Alive! But still she would surely not survive her injuries.

He examined her as closely as he dared, afraid to touch her lest he disturbed some fragile equilibrium that was keeping the breath in her body. A wave of despair flooded through him. He did not know what to do for her. He felt small and helpless in the face of this overwhelming catastrophe.

"Oh, Mother, help me," he prayed. Then he lifted his face back to the mountain, imagining the Living Goddess as he had seen her such a short time before. She had seemed remote and indifferent to the fate of mortals. But in her Virgin form she had looked upon him and she had not struck him down.

He knew he was probably going to his death but the Goddess was his only hope. He took one last look at Pandora, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully, then he swallowed manfully and began the arduous climb back up once again to the plateau of the gods.